


twelve fragments

by abeillle



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Experimental Style, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 17:47:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6917134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abeillle/pseuds/abeillle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The linguistic equivalent of a shoebox filled with polaroids, or, <i>the Iwaizumi Hajime laundry list of significant moments. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	twelve fragments

**Author's Note:**

> Some attempts at a stream-of-consciousness type style have been made, said attempts have also been butchered mercilessly by the incorporation of a numerical list. I'm sorry, Margaret Atwood. Sincerest apologies also to James Joyce, I had never dared imagine my first tribute to Molly Bloom's _Sololiquy of Yes_ would take the form of an anime fanfiction.

  1. Hajime and Toru grew up together in the countryside. They were not next-door neighbours, like the childhood friends of romance novels; they lived on opposite ends of a winding street, bordered by a shallow creek on one side and a scattering of oak trees on the other. A short ride by bicycle spanned the distance between their houses. Hajime pedalled his red Nakamura across that stretch of dirt road so often he had it memorized: the green fields and sharp heat of the cloudless summer months, the song of cicadas and bullfrogs in a purple-blue twilight, the snow dusting the ground on the coldest days of the year. The strip of moonlight between the trees, and his bicycle swerving in half-circles, when they snuck out to stargaze one night, armed with a picnic hamper of leftovers and Toru's collapsible telescope.
  2. _Toru in a jacket and aviator goggles, which he nicked from his father's dresser, making faces at the mirror, Playing volleyball with the laundry line as a net; the two of them frantically re-washing his sister's best shirt after one of Hajime's more audacious spikes slammed it to the ground, the scuttle of a beetle inside a glass jar, Toru's tooth, so small and white in the palm of his hand, knocked out while playing baseball with the other boys in the schoolyard  
_
  3. Back then words like _love_ and _romance_ belonged to an adult vernacular, in the same category as _taxes_ or _newspapers._ By the time Hajime realized that _best friend_ was an inadequate term for whatever Toru meant to him, they were highschoolers, and Toru – who was Oikawa to him, now – was reportedly in love. He had a girlfriend, Nozaki Seo, whom he had met while out on an errand for his mother. Nozaki was a bright, easygoing girl who went to the neighbouring school and who had a habit of re-tying her hair irritatingly often. Hajime didn't believe that they were in love. He caught them kissing once, and they made it look almost painful, like a chore. Hajime presumed he was supposed to hate Nozaki, but he didn't, although he was a little jealous of her from time to time. They were good friends, the Oikawa thing notwithstanding, and she was funny and knew a lot about wildlife. The three of them would walk along the dirt path and she would point at this tree or that bird and rattle off some facts – “that's the Konara Oak, see those flowers?” Or “this is the Japanese Woodpecker, you can tell by the red markings on its head.”
  4. In their early days, Hajime was the best at volleyball, having been graced with a smidge of natural talent; by high school Oikawa had surpassed him by a mile, through persistence alone. Hajime didn't mind, he didn't like to compete with Oikawa, unless it was about trivial things. They raced on their morning runs, and kept score during after-team practice, but when it came to bigger issues they were an indivisible unit. When Oikawa told him, “I'll be in the world championships one day, Iwa-chan, just you watch! I'll go to the Olympics next,” he didn't know what to do other than nod, because he knew Oikawa could do it, but he'd have to do it alone.
  5. After Nozaki's family moved to Tokyo it was Akiyama, and then Kasahara, then Maeno, and Watanabe, and that there was Tomika, then Sugimura.  He lost count after Sugimura.
  6. _Why not me why not me why not me why not me, why her, why me, why do I like you so much, why are you beautiful, why are you better than me in every way, how can you stand to be around me when you know that I hold you back, why can't I be like you, why can't I be with you, I think you're the most amazing person that I've ever met, I think your eyes are pretty when you smile, I think I love you, why why why why why why why_
  7. By the time they part ways at graduation, he learns to call it a blessing.
  8. Hajime is in university when Oikawa finally plays in the world championships. By then they're little more than strangers; it's difficult to maintain a relationship embedded in proximity across hundreds of miles. The two of them were not meant for distance, and the whole thing is uncharacteristically melancholy for their dynamic. In high school, he had usually thought about Oikawa with a hand down his pants. In university, he remembers Oikawa in the past tense, while flipping wistfully through old yearbooks.
  9. During an ill-advised hook-up, he remembers, inexplicably, a daydream about his seventeenth birthday. In the dream he had asked, “so where’s my gift, Trashykawa?” And Oikawa had swung himself into his lap and said, coyly, “wouldn’t you like to know? You’re so impatient,” as he pressed his palms into Hajime’s chest.
  10. Hajime used to reason that he wasn't meant for big things. He would wear prestige and fame like a heavy coat, and they would weigh him down, because in his purest form he wasn't a high-cut athlete, but a boy who rode his bike down dirt paths and collected beetles in old jam jars.
  11. He falls asleep in front of his laptop most nights, watching Oikawa's matches, over and over, the way Oikawa would back in high school. It's unsettling. Hajime never doubted that Oikawa would win, that he would go far, but he didn't predict the strangeness of watching Oikawa's victories secondhand.
  12. The light from the street below illuminates the photographs strewn in a collage over his parquet. The uppermost is a blurry polaroid: Oikawa, aged eight, grinning with a gap in his smile and blood on his lip at the baseball diamond, fist closed around his dislodged tooth. Hajime beside him, tentatively holding his other hand.




End file.
